


A Little Bit of Love and Not One Kiss

by musiwrites



Series: Every Day I Try So Hard to Know Your Mind [1]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Multi, Period-Typical Homophobia, Polyamory, Post-Season/Series 01, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 16:20:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7764688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/musiwrites/pseuds/musiwrites
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's strange, trying to reconcile who and what they were to each other, before everything, with what they're becoming now.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. O N E

**Author's Note:**

> I've fallen fast and hard for every aspect of this show, the only thing I can't help lamenting in the end is the love-triangle being put into play. This reads somewhere between a loving ode to the show, wishful thinking, and a little eerie romanticization of teenage years spent getting into trouble with (mostly) good intentions. Excuse any errors, this went directly from brain to page, I'll probably find the time to revise it in the next week or so, but I've never been particularly good at waiting. 
> 
> [ **On the underage warning:** The age of consent in Indiana is 16 so I'm not sure how necessary the underage warning is, but all the characters are still in high school so I'm going to keep it regardless.]
> 
> [ **On the graphic violence warning:** This is via memories/dreams/references, rather than events taking place in real-time in the story.]
> 
> Story title from [**Can't Seem To Make You Mine**](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gFSAyzx4Oc) by The Seeds.

A month since Will was reunited with his family, and things go back to normal.

Nancy is back to study-dates with Steve and family dinners in what feels like no time at all. It's so easy it almost feels worse than whatever unknown collapse she had braced herself for. She feels out of sync with her own life, but the movements of it are too familiar to escape.

A month since Nancy lost her best-friend, and things go back to normal.

Well, almost normal.

These days, sleep doesn't come easy. She can't turn off the lights and more often than not falls asleep still holding whichever book she was using to distract herself long enough to drift-off. Even then, there's the nightmares to contend with. She sees red hair and empty eyes and wakes up unable to escape the litany of guilty what-ifs circling around her mind.

Every time she and Mike leave the house, their mother hugs them a little too tight and a little too long to feel completely casual, and there's a fear in her eyes that never used to be there. Like she's telling herself it's silly to keep feeling like every time they walk out the door might be the last. Nancy wants to say something, reassure her that everything is going to be okay, but she can't quite find it in herself to tell such a lie, so she just squeezes back a little firmer than she normally would have and puts on the most carefree smile she can manage as she waves goodbye. 

Arguably the strangest thing about this new, slightly out of step version of normalcy she's found herself in, is Jonathan. They can't quite seem to find their footing with each other. There's three versions of them. Before, when he was just the quiet, uncomfortable boy she'd see in her periphery now and then and maybe try to share a few kind words. During, when they bonded out of fear, loss and blood. And now, unsure how to interact without the threat of losing loved ones, and each other, looming over their heads but certain that they are now cemented in each other's lives as _something_. Perhaps the hardest part of understanding what she and Jonathan are supposed to be to each other now is what that means for her and Steve. 

She loves Steve. Not in the way she'd thought she might grow to when they first went out. Not in the midnight serenades and rose-petal anniversaries, grand high-school sweethearts way she'd thought she would before, but in another way. The way you love someone when you know, without question, they'd risk their life to save yours. The kind of love that runs bone deep, that you know could only ever change form, but never entirely fade away. A way that's a lot like family, but a little like something else, too. She knows now that Steve will always be there. Even if they break-up, if they don't speak to each other for thirty years, he's someone she will always be able to find help with, if need be.

The thing is, she feels the same towards Jonathan. Maybe with a little less clarity, a little less romance, but the feelings are there. She trusts him, and she **wants** him, in every sense of the word. She doesn't love or want Steve any less or any differently for it, but doesn't change her feelings.

She loves Jonathan, and she knows that Steve can see it. 

They talk about Jonathan, sometimes, often enough she's surprised by it, even after everything. When they talk, she can hear it in his voice and see it on his face that he hears what she's not saying. He can see how she feels and though she keeps herself braced for something, a fight, accusations, tears, none of it ever comes. In fact, Steve is never anything but warm. Even when she knows she's probably let too much affection drip into her tone while talking to or about Jonathan, enough that it should make Steve concerned, or at least uncomfortable, he only smiles sincerely and squeezes her hand with some unknown reassurance. She doesn't understand, but she wouldn't even know where to start questioning him about it to make sense of things.

The first time she had told Steve, gently but in no uncertain terms, that she was going to ask Jonathan if he'd like to sit with them at lunch, Steve was firmly on board. He's been steadily determined to make amends with Jonathan. She knew he was sincere when he showed up at the Byers house that night, and even more so when he'd suggested getting Jonathan a new camera, and then insisted on paying half even though he wouldn't let her tell Jonathan he'd had anything to do with the gift. But, still, she hadn't expected him to form any sort of bond with the other boy, but it seems that he has. He goes out of his way to make sure Jonathan feels included, sometimes sitting next to him, across from Nancy so he can shove playfully at his shoulder and give friendly back-smacks when conversation calls for it. She thinks he might have called him once or twice, she's not certain and doesn't see a reason to press for answers. 

Still, she doesn't expect to walk out of the school, in search of Steve, and spot him next to Jonathan, the two of them leant up against the latter's old Ford. He's leaning in close, almost intimately close, gesturing to help Jonathan visualize whatever point he's trying to get across, and Jonathan looks tense, but there's a small smile on his face and it doesn't look forced at all. She's not sure what she's expecting to feel when she sees them, but there's a warm, pleasant swell in her chest, almost giddy, and she knows whatever this is, she wants more of it. She walks up to them, a smile on her face, and when they finally notice her Jonathan stands a little straighter but lowers his eyes, hands digging into his pockets like he's not entirely sure what to do with himself. There's a light blush on his face, which isn't entirely amiss when he talks to her, but he's acting almost like he's been caught out in something. Steve's grin, on the other hand, is easy. He holds out an arm for her to slip comfortably against his side, sliding up to press a chaste kiss to his lips. When they turn back, Jonathan looks stricken and she can't help frowning. Things had been a little uncomfortable at first, him being around her and Steve together, but it seemed to have passed for the most part. Steve's grin falters when Jonathan quickly and gracelessly excuses himself from whatever conversation they'd been having and hurries into his car. 

They move so that he can pull out of the parking lot and it stings more than it should when he doesn't look back at either of them as he goes. 

Later, when they're leant up against her headboard, she needs to say something. 

"What were you talking to Jonathan about, earlier?" She looks up at Steve and feels him shrug.  
"I was telling him about the movie we saw the other night, thought maybe he'd like to come to the next one."  
"You invited him to a movie with us?" She asks, surprised. Generally when she and Steve go to the movies they go specifically for date nights, just the two of them. They'd gone with Tommy and Carol as a sort of double date a few times, back when they were still on good terms, but that was about it.  
"Yeah, is that alright? I thought you'd be happy about it." Confusion colours his voice, lilting up at the end of the sentence so it comes off as more of a question than anything.  
"I am," She reassures. "But I know you like movie nights to be date nights, you didn't have to do this to make me happy." He grins again at that.  
"I didn't." He tells her, squeezing her shoulders as he does. "I asked him cause I wanted him to come, making you happy was just a bonus." She smiles up at him, he sounds sincere.  
"What did he say?"  
"He said he'd think about it." Steve sighs. "I think he's shy." At that she laughs. Sure, Jonathan can be shy, but around Steve? Steve whose face he's smashed in, Steve who fought monsters with him and helped rescue his little brother from a parallel universe? Somehow, that didn't check out.  
"Why would he be shy around you, all of the sudden?" Her voice is still peppered with giggles when she asks. Steve shrugs again, but this time she notices the pink flush staining his cheeks and recognition runs sharp through her mind. Suddenly she understands. She hears what he's not saying, the same way he does with her. It's jarring, she wants to ask more, wants to pry, but Steve has gone quiet and she remembers the guilty, stricken look on Jonathan's face when she'd joined them, and thinks maybe this is something she needs to be careful with.

Once they're both curled up in the dimmed light, not the dark, never the dark, about to fall asleep, she whispers into the silence between them "Steve?"  
"Yeah?" He whispers back.  
"I'm glad. That you asked Jonathan to a movie." There's a prolonged beat of silence, if it weren't for the uneven pattern of his breath against her neck she'd think he'd fallen asleep.  
"Thanks, Nance, me too." She doesn't think she imagines the rough edge to his voice, so she holds him a little closer and does her best to fall asleep like that.


	2. T W O

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Warning:** This chapter contains homophobic slurs, Jonathan has a lot of internalized homophobia he needs to work through. Largely thanks to his father and, of course, the growing AIDS crisis and the fear accompanying it.

Jonathan white-knuckles the steering wheel the entire drive home. 

He's not stupid, he knows exactly why he felt so guilty when Nancy walked up to them. As of late, the warm ache that spreads through his gut when he talks to Steve hasn't been dissimilar to the one he feels around Nancy, and he hates himself for it. After everything that they've been through, after how hard he fought to keep his family together, hold on not only to their lives but his own, and he feels one step away from throwing it away for what, some stupid crush, every time Steve wraps a friendly arm around him. It makes him feel sick down to his stomach. It helps to picture their faces if they ever found out what he was thinking and feeling, the way they'd reel back in disgust, afraid to even touch him if they knew. It helps him keep himself in check, not look too long, lean too close. 

A part of him wants to laugh. Hiding feelings for Nancy had been unpleasant enough, then after having to accept that, of course, she would always go back to Steve instead of him, this happened. He almost wishes Steve had turned out to be as awful as he seemed at first glance. If that had happened, these feelings never would have arisen, and he could have gone on loathing him from a distance as nothing more than Nancy's spoiled, undeserving, over-privileged boyfriend. But, because life never did agree with Jonathan's wishes, that's not what happened.

He gets home to find his brother and mother both home, laughing and tinkering around in the kitchen, getting dinner ready. He can't help but smile when he sees them. He does his best to swallow down all his unwanted thoughts and feelings because this is what makes it all worth it, having the family he loves, however messy, to come home to. He can't throw that away. He tells himself, for the hundredth time, that this is it. He's not going to let himself keep having thoughts like that. Maybe he won't see Steve and Nancy for a while, he's a little new to having friends and he doesn't want to hurt them but he's sure they'll understand if he tells them he wants to spend a little more time at home. Maybe he'll tell them Will has been acting strange lately, which isn't untrue and is a whole other issue that he doesn't like to overthink. 

Unfortunately, he doesn't get away with it for long. Just short of a week later, Nancy calls. His mum calls him into the kitchen and hands him the phone with a smile on her face. She loves Nancy and Steve, so delighted to see him finally have some good friends that it breaks his heart a little to think what she'd say if she only knew. He smiles tightly at her and takes the phone, turning away to talk.

"Hey, Nance."  
"Hey," She answers. "We've missed you at lunch lately, everything alright?"  
"Yeah, yeah, I've just been doing some extra credit work." He lies smoothly.  
"Extra credit work? With who?" He doesn't miss the hint of teasing disbelief in her voice, and it makes him grin into the phone as a familiar fluttering fills his chest.  
"Um, Mr. Obst."  
"Mhm." He can almost hear the smirk in her tone. "Sure you are."  
"I am!" He insists, laughing a little. "I mean, seriously, though. My grades definitely got worse, during...everything. My mum wants me to go to school, y'know?" Nancy sighs down the line.  
"Jonathan. You know if you wanted help you could have just asked me to tutor you, right?" Jonathan has a momentary panic, in which he thinks he's gotten himself into trouble with this lie, before realizing that, really, why not let Nancy tutor him? It's not as if his grades couldn't use the help, and his mom really does want him to go to school, even if he's not always so sure about it. Plus things have been weird lately, trying to figure out how to be around each other now, this could help.  
"Um, you sure?"  
"Absolutely! How about we start tomorrow after class, then we can figure out a schedule?" He wants laugh but settles for a private smile. Of course she's ready to build a schedule already, always on top of things.  
"Sounds good, thanks Nancy."  
"Don't mention it! And, hey, since it's Friday, how about you stay and watch a movie with Steve and I afterwards? He was coming over anyways, and I know he invited you to come out with us next time, this isn't quite the same, but you're gonna be there already, right?" Jonathan bites his lip and tries not to breathe too hard into the receiver. Shit, what can he say? She just offered to do him a favour, she knows he doesn't have anything better to do on Friday nights, he almost never works nights anymore and his brother is going to be at her house playing board games with her younger brother. Shit.  
"Jonathan?" Her voice comes through, questioning. He realizes he's been silent too long.  
"Um yeah, sure. Sounds like a good time." That sounded stupid. Maybe if he sounded stupid enough she'll decide she doesn't want him there after all, he thinks.  
"Great!" She says, and something inside him crumbles when he hears how sincerely happy she sounds. 

They say their goodbyes and Jonathan waits until he's back in his room, door safely shut, to let out the sigh he's held in. This doesn't have to be a big deal if he doesn't make it one. He doesn't even have to sit with them, he can just watch the movie and block out everything else. It'll be fine.

He spends the entire day at school the next day in indecision over whether to pretend nothing feels off, or avoid Nancy and Steve. In the end, it just makes him come off even more incredibly awkward than he usually does, and he kicks himself for it. When he leaves the school he doesn't even get a moment to breathe, Nancy and Steve are waiting there, right at the bottom of the stairs outside. They smile and call him over when they notice him. It surprises him when Nancy opts to ride with him, following Steve in what he assumes is his dad's BMW to Nancy's house. They're sitting in a comfortable silence most of the way there, radio on low in the background. Eventually, though, Nancy speaks.

"How've you been?" He glances over at her, and she doesn't hide anything on her face. There's a visible edge of worry to her expression.  
"What do you mean?"  
"Well, you just seem a little distant, lately. We haven't really had much chance to talk and I just wanted to make sure everything is alright." She pauses for a moment, biting her lip in indecision like she's unsure she wants to let out the next words, but she resolves to go on. "I still have nightmares, you know? I can't sleep without the lights on." Jonathan isn't quite sure what to say to that. It makes him ache to know she still hurts. He wants to offer to help, to sleep on her floor so she feels safe until the nightmares stop, but he's sure that's not a good idea.  
"It's been weird." He answers, finally. Before following sincerely, and only slightly uncomfortably with "You can call me, you know? When you have the nightmares. I...I didn't see what you saw, but maybe I can still help."  
"Jonathan." She says, voice slightly wobbly, eyes watery. She reaches over to squeeze his shoulder gently. "Thank you." He nods, afraid of what will show through his voice if he speaks, and expects that to be the end of it, but a minute later she continues.  
"I just want you to know you can talk to me, about anything." He meets her eyes and there's intensity in her gaze, like she's willing him to understand. "It doesn't have to be about what happened. I'm your friend, you can tell me anything, alright?" His heart skips a beat in his chest as the thought that **_she knows_** crosses his mind. But it can't be that, he reassures himself. He's played that scenario over in his head a hundred times, and this is definitely not how it goes. 

They get to her house and he's spared having to come up with a reply. The three of them head up to Nancy's room together after the perfunctory greetings from Mrs. Wheeler, who seems to love him and Steve now that she has some idea what happened, and Steve takes the chair by Nancy's desk, leaving the two of them to settle on the bed and spread out their textbooks and notebooks. 

They make it through an hour or so of solid studying, during which Jonathan is pleasantly surprised to find himself distracted enough to actually learn a thing or two, Nancy really is a good tutor, before Steve starts derailing things. He spends ten minutes interjecting increasingly ridiculous quips into whatever point Nancy is trying to make, before flopping onto the bed, directly over their study materials. Jonathan wants to feel annoyed, but mostly he's amused, charmed, and a little guilty. Nancy smacks him across the forehead and chastises him but he just laughs up at her. Overall, it's all fine, until Steve grips Jonathan by the knee, pushing himself up to sit against the narrow headboard next to him. He lets his hand drop soon after, but Jonathan can still feel it there, burned through the denim covering his leg. 

"Don't you think it's time for a study break?" Steve's suggestive tone is impossible to miss, and Jonathan starts to feel incredibly uncomfortable. Nancy looks surprised for a moment before coming closer, and he doesn't know, maybe this is normal, making out with your boyfriend on your bed when your friend is sitting right next to the two of you, but it's not normal to him and he's pretty sure he can't deal with it. He nearly falls off the bed getting up to leave so quickly, but Nancy grips his wrist just firmly enough to stop him before he can get both feet on the ground.  
"It's okay, why don't you stay?" She suggests, voice gentle. He can't quite wrap his mind around what she's asking, or why.  
"Um." Is all he manages.  
"Come on." She says, leaning back slightly from Steve and patting the space on the bed next to them. Jonathan sits, heart beating a thousand miles a minute, still uncomprehending of the situation. Nancy runs a soothing palm over his shoulder and up his neck, until she's cupping his jaw.  
"It's okay." She whispers, then leans in to kiss him. His lips move tentatively with hers, and his nerves all feel like they're on fire from her touch. Everything about the moment feels surreal. She pulls away, after a moment, smoothing her hand down the back of his neck and leaving it to rest. He's left wide-eyed, still struggling to understand, when Steve shifts so he's closer to facing him, and wraps a firm hand around the back of his neck.  
"Do you want this?" He asks, voice low and for once devoid of any teasing.  
"I-I'm not a fag." Jonathan chokes out. It sounds weak, even to him.  
"That's not what I asked." Steve replies. Jonathan sucks in a breath and it feels like his chest is made from led. He can hear his heart rushing in his ears.  
"Yeah." He breathes, and that's that. Steve leans forward and kisses him and it feels like all the air punches out of his lungs.

He knows he's shaking, knows they must both be able to feel it, but no one says anything. Everything feels like it passes in a haze, they kiss, and they touch, and no one does much more than that but it's more than enough. Eventually, they slump together against Nancy's headboard, catching their breath until Nancy reminds them they planned to watch a movie. They check themselves in Nancy's mirror, making sure no one looks too disheveled, and eventually they're put together enough to head downstairs and watch a movie in the living room, Nancy's parents aren't around and when Nancy lays across both his and Steve's laps and Steve slings an arm tight around his shoulders he finds it hard to catch his breath. He's terrified, and he doesn't have a hope of focusing on the movie, but when he looks at the soft grins on Steve and Nancy's faces he thinks maybe he was a little wrong. Surely this can't be so terrible?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be more of this, and probably a revision of this story at some point, just keep an eye on the series! Eventually I'll write out the conversation Steve and Nancy had to get things out in the open! ♥

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this was a one-shot, rather than two chapters, but then I decided I wanted the second half to be done from Jonathan's perspective and it felt neater to divide the story at the POV change. Next part will be up tomorrow (August 14th, 2016). 
> 
> Come bleed nostalgia (you're too young to actually have) with me [@musiwrites](https://musiwrites.tumblr.com/) on tumblr or [@musiwrites](https://twitter.com/musiwrites) on twitter ♥♥


End file.
